


Below the Surface

by Fire_shockk



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I based Taeyong off myself but I promise I'm okay, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Taeyong/Taeil is really only implied if you squint, it gets a little bit graphic at some parts so not for the faint of heart, it's not super graphic but it's there, there's no romance this is a recovery fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:13:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_shockk/pseuds/Fire_shockk
Summary: Taeyong just really liked scars.





	1. Scars

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect my first nct fic to turn out like this, but it's the first one I've finished so I figured it would be a shame not to post it. I'm not an experienced writer, so sorry for any mistakes or inconsistencies. I hope this is somewhat readable.

He didn’t remember having such a fascination with the tiny white lightning streaks as a child. When he was small, only half a year shy of seven, Taeyong hit a rock while riding his bright red bicycle down the path in the park. He was cast forward off his bike, and hit the ground hard. The wind was knocked out of his little lungs, but it wasn’t the shock that made the boy cry as his mother ran to collect his small figure. Kids fall off their bikes all the time, and Taeyong was no exception. In fact, that was the second time he’d fallen that week. He didn’t cry the first time, though. But the spark to his tears was the blood rolling down his arm in rivulets, dripping to the ground as Taeyong clutched at it in an attempt to stop the flow. His mother pried his dirty hands away, and dabbed at it with some tissue instead. She promised him it would be alright, but they would go to the doctor just in case. Just like she promised, he was fine. No infections, and no stitches, and no more bleeding. But, the doctor said before they left, the cut just might leave a scar.

The atopy was a constant within his childhood. It would itch, and itch, all over, like his body was on fire and the only way to put himself out was to peel the skin away from himself, layer by layer. It calmed down as he got older, and found himself less prone to flaky, dry skin, so long as he took care of himself properly. The fire subsided, so much so that as an adult, he considered it as good as gone. But it hadn’t left him unscathed. The years of scratching and itching left small craters on his skin, that shone pale in the summer while the rest of him glowed golden in the sunlight. Just beside his eye was the most noticeable one, the one that bled, the one that his mother had to take him to see the doctor again because there was blood in his eyes and he was so scared. Once again, though just briefly mentioned, the doctor had said the word scar. It will leave a scar, for sure, this time. But although the doctor was kind, he didn’t lie to the boy, after all, he did not tell Taeyong or his mother the whole truth. The scar grew with him. As his face began to form a shape, so did his scar. As his cheekbones became more prominent, the crater next to his eye did the same. He resented it as a teen, but the older he grew, the more beautiful it seemed.

Taeyong didn’t know when his fascination began. Perhaps it was one day when he was alone in the studio, sweat dripping off his exhausted body, when he sat on the floor and stared at his reflection in the mirror covering the wall. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting, he could see everything. The scar next to his eye cast a shadow on itself, appearing almost like a cave, with him becoming the cliff face. The spots became more apparent on his arms, as well. The scar he got when he was six was short and jagged, hardly visible unless you were looking closely. Taeyong always looked closely. His body was a map, a painting, a work of abstract lines and gashes that streaked across the canvas so subtly that to the passing eye it would seem almost blank. It was beautiful.

Taeyong didn’t consider himself vain. He knew that people complimented his beauty, that they called him handsome, and although he would deny it, he didn’t necessarily disagree. But it wasn’t his face that was beautiful, it was his scars. He stared in the mirror sometimes, admiring his naked body, and the memories that covered it. Each one had a story. One was a cut from a fall off his bike. Two were from when he accidentally cut himself while cooking. Three were from when he was a kid and got too grabby with his neighbour’s cat. Four were from his atopy, the moon craters left by the fire under his skin. They were all his stories, all his adventures. His battles scars from his battle called life.

They weren’t like anyone else’s scars, he knew. People have different stories, different battles. Some were fought in different ways, with different outcomes. Some were accidental, and some were not.

Taeyong had thought about the concept for longer than he liked to admit. He cut his hand one day, while he was chopping carrots for the stew he was making. It bled, and he couldn’t help but watch the liquid bubble at the surface, pooling in the palm of his hand as he held it over the sink. He watched it drip into the water, staining it a coppery red before being swept into the stream and washed down the drain. It wasn’t until he heard Taeil’s scream that he realized what he was doing, and quickly pushed his hand under the tap to disinfect it as best as he could. His older bandmate insisted on helping him bandage it, fussing about kitchen safety and how he should have applied pressure right away, and _what were you doing just staring at it? If you left it for too long it could leave a scar._ Oh, if only he knew.

Unfortunately, the cut was short and thin, and would likely disappear within a couple weeks of proper care and treatment. There would be no new bolts of lightning to add to his collection. Unless…

Taeyong found himself unwrapping his hand that night, under the cover of darkness. It had bled only slightly through the bandage, but other than that it had started to scab already, hard and jagged, feeling like a small mountain range as he dragged his finger along it. _You’re dirty,_ he thought to himself, pulling his hand away. _It’ll get infected._ But the thought of peeling away the scab was too tempting, the idea of reopening the wound so that after healing time and time again it would turn into a smooth, pale dip in his skin that would resemble an icy lake, sheer and naked in all it’s glory, reflecting the shining moonlight while surrounded by the darkness of night. Although, as tempting as it was, _it was dirty._ And as much as Taeyong loved scars, he hated being dirty. So instead of peeling away the scab like he imagined, he got up from his bed and washed his hands in the bathroom. His fingers hesitated, if only for a moment, before rewrapping his hand in the bandages and heading back to sleep.

His accidents became more frequent, after that. He wasn’t paying attention while cutting open a box, even after insisting he should do it instead of Ten because he didn’t want the Thai boy to injure himself with the knife. When Sicheng dropped a glass, Taeyong let the shards slice open his palm instead of cleaning the pieces up with a cloth like he should have. His leg caught on the coffee table by accident, and he fell hard. His members fussed over him, telling him to get more sleep, be more careful, pay more attention to his surroundings. He excused himself, saying he had been in a rush to get to the bathroom, so that they would mistake his carelessness for haste. They didn't need to know about how he lifted his pant leg in the bathroom to check for blood, because he felt the scrape on that one. They didn’t need to know about the excitement he felt when he saw the broken skin, and how he gently wiped the blood away before pushing the pant leg back down. It would scar better if he left it alone, he knew. So he walked back out to his members, crawling into their giant huddle, and snuggled into Johnny’s chest to watch whatever movie they were in the middle of.

He cracked at 11:48. It felt so wrong, so dirty, like his skin was on fire again. Except he knew this time it wasn’t his skin. This time, the burning was in his mind. The soap and water he scrubbed his leg with cooled the fire, and the ointment and bandages he wrapped it with smothered it completely. Taeyong wanted the scar, wanted the art to cover his skin, but he couldn't do it. His fear of infection clashed with his desire to deface his skin and he realized, amidst the tears falling from his face and the shaking of his hands as he wrapped his cut, that he had a problem.

Admitting it was harder than he envisioned it to be. Taeyong had been planning on telling his band members, asking them to keep him away from sharp objects until he got himself under control, but he was never able to do anything but vaguely hint at how he was getting tired of cutting vegetables. It worked for the first couple days, but after Taeyong had to watch Taeil flounder with the utensil and chop his carrots into haphazard chunks, the knife was back in his hands and his carrots were once again pristine. He thought that maybe, if he forced himself to think that what he had been doing was wrong, it would be easier to stop. But it could never be that easy, could it be? After all, the moon doesn’t stop being beautiful despite the brisk cold of the night. The radiance of the sun cannot be disregarded due to a mere sunburn. And as such, the scars on Taeyong’s body could not stop reminding him of the beauty they held, despite his best efforts to feel repulsed by his thoughts.

He found himself one night, after a long day of practice and schedules, alone in the bathroom after his shower. He was the last one to go, since his members always complained about him taking hours to clean himself. So he stood in front of the mirror, like he had countless times before, and stared at his body. It was littered with white streaks, some so faded they couldn’t be seen, but Taeyong knew they were there. He remembered where they came from. He stared, and dragged his fingertips along his skin, pruned and wrinkled from the hot shower. His hands left featherlight touches along his chest, up to collarbone, across his shoulder, down his arm, and finally let his hand hover just above his wrist. It was blank, here. The canvas had no art spread across it, and it had an unsettling clearness to it that contrasted the rest of his skin.

He had been good, Taeyong thought. He hadn't hurt himself lately, even by accident. But he felt as blank as his skin. It was making him restless, how clean his skin seemed lately. The purity of it threw him off, and he didn’t like it. Maybe, just this once, he could add a scar. That way, he would stop wanting one for a while. He deserved a reward for taking care of himself, after all. Just this once, he would add on to his collection. Just this once, he would paint a new brushstroke onto his canvas. Only one. Then he would be okay.

He grabbled Doyoung’s razor from under the sink. It was one of the old fashioned ones that barber’s like to use, the one that was only a single blade that required very steady hands to use. It was fitting, for a guy like Doyoung. For a second Taeyong wondered if it was selfish for him to use one of his member’s possessions for his this reason, and he held the blade above his forearm for a minute to decide. The minute stretched out, and he had only pressed the blade slightly closer before the door to the bathroom burst open unexpectedly.

“Taeyong, sorry, but I really need to brush my—”

Silence blanketed the room, and neither party knew what to say in this moment. Taeil stared at Taeyong’s static form, mouth hanging open as he made the connection between the blade resting on his skin and the frequent accidents his younger bandmate had been getting himself into. Taeyong, opposite of Taeil, just stared wide eyed like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. “Taeyongie?”

Taeyong was panicking. He never intended for anyone to see this, he knew how bad it looked. He didn't want to harm himself, he just wanted a new scar. But he couldn't say that, because no matter how delusional his thinking could be, Taeyong knew that he had a problem, and nothing he could say would excuse him from the fact that he had just been about to pull a razor across his arm. So, as per his usual defence, he tried to play it off as casually as he could.

“Ah, Taeil-hyung, sorry I was taking so long in here,” he said smoothly, setting the razor back under the sink as nonchalantly as he could, as if he had just finished shaving. “Sorry, I’ll get out of your way.” And even if he expected it, Taeil was not a naive man after all, the grip on his arm as he tried to push past the older still made Taeyong flinch. Not due to pain, no, Taeil would never hurt him. But he was nervous, god, he was so guilty. And the love, the care, the _pain_ that Taeyong could see in his older brother’s eyes made him want to vomit. He had done this to his friend. His member who cared about him, who loved him, who would probably somehow find a way to blame himself for this situation. And Taeyong knew Taeil would never be at fault, nobody could be. Only Taeyong was to blame, himself and his skewed vision of beauty.

“Taeyongie,” Taeil whispered, still clutching onto Taeyong’s bicep. “What were you about to do?” And Taeyong knew exactly what he had been about to do, and what he had been thinking in that exact moment, and how he knew exactly how messed up it all was, and yet he still would have done it. And it’s this realization that makes Taeyong finally look up from the floor and meet Taeil’s gentle brown eyes, and before he knows it there are hot tears streaming down his cheeks. The dam breaks, and so does Taeyong. He’s in Taeil’s arms, now, as he clutches the older man’s pyjamas like a lifeline, and sobs into his shoulder. He’s muttering quiet phrases, whispering _I’m sorry_ and _I love you_ and _please don’t be mad._ And Taeil’s answering him, whispering back _I love you_ and _I should have been there for you_ and _I’m not mad at you._ And Taeyong doesn't realize how much he needs it when he grips Taeil tighter, pulling his face away only slightly to gaze at his brother with tear filled eyes.

“Hyung, I need help,” his voice cracked, but the words came out nonetheless. “Please help me, Taeil-hyung. I don’t know what to do.” And the words feel heavy on his tongue, but take a weight off his chest that he didn’t know had been resting there. He feels lighter, and as Taeil pulls him in for another bone crushing hug, he hopes things will get better.

“We’ll get you some help, Taeyongie, I promise.”


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get better.

Things do get better for Taeyong, slowly. After talking with Taeil, he talked to his members as well, and then finally his managers. Everyone was much more supportive of him than he thought they would be, but he scolded himself for thinking so. Of course they would be supportive, they were his family, after all. He was periodically sent to talk to a psychologist, a form of therapy he was glad to finally have. He didn’t realize how much easier it would be to get over his problem if he talked about it with someone. He was also able to form a plan to help get his mind back on track, away from the pulls and tugs of the scars on his body.

He also realized, after several months of therapy, how little he looked in the mirror these days. He was less drawn to his reflection now, and every so often it would strike him that he hadn’t admired his scars in a few weeks. It was less of a habit, now, to look at them. Even after showering and standing in front of the mirror, he made a point to keep his eyes on his face. When his gaze strayed just beside his eye, he would leave the bathroom to put on his clothes and get on with his day. He was doing much better.

Of course, like on any road to recovery, there would be relapses. There were times when Taeyong, who had relied on his scars as his source of confidence for so long, would break down when he realized he wasn’t allowed to find his scars beautiful any longer. There were times where the scar on his hand caught the light, and he revelled in it’s icy white pigment for a few moments before realizing he had been staring again. There were times where he wanted to try again—creating another scar—to see if it still felt the same. But the thought would frighten him, and he would break down before telling Taeil so that he could make sure Taeyong wouldn’t make any rash decisions. Sometimes the situation tore him apart, no matter how hard he tried to be strong.

Strangely enough, it was something Taeil said to him after one of his episodes, that stuck with Taeyong the most. It wasn’t something he hadn’t heard before, either. It was something cheesy you would find in some teen romance movie, but despite it, Taeyong could tell Taeil meant it.

“You’re beautiful with or without your scars, Taeyong.”

With or without. He wasn’t only beautiful because of his scars. If his scars were gone, he would still be beautiful, he would still be worthy. And despite how damaged he is, despite the canvas haphazardly littered with brushstrokes, he would still be beautiful. Even with his scars, even with the struggles he went through, Taeyong was beautiful.

 

Taeyong just _really_ liked scars. But after a while, he learned to like himself without the scars, too.


End file.
